Strategy: Using Service Providers to Manage DDoS Threats

Brad Causey05/02/12

Using Service Providers to Manage DDoS Threats

As you’ve no doubt seen in recent years, hactivists (hackers who attack for a cause) such as Anonymous and LulzSec are becoming increasingly bold in their attacks on corporate ­America. Using the Internet as a venue, they are levying attacks using hundreds or thousands of zombie computers to overwhelm victims’ bandwidth and servers. These distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks can last for minutes or days, while leaving your employees and ­customers without access to online resources.

Many options are available for protecting against, and mitigating the effects of, a DDoS attack. However, with the increasing use of third-party service providers, your organization must consider whether and how these providers can fit into a comprehensive and strategic DDoS protection plan. The good news is that these providers likely have far more resources and know-how than your own organization when it comes to fighting against DDoS attacks. The trick will be to proactively engage with providers to ensure that the full force of these ­resources will be effectively leveraged for your own organization’s needs.

In this report, we examine how you can combine your protections with those of third-party service providers to protect against and/or withstand DDoS attacks. One of the most ­important takeaways is that you must prepare in advance. You cannot wait until after the DDoS hits to implement these technologies or coordinate protection with your service providers.